


Sick Day

by Lisztful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisztful/pseuds/Lisztful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean are sick, and Castiel is either the worst or the best nurse ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on the [Castiel centric meme](http://maychorian.livejournal.com/202989.html), "Sam and Dean get sniffly, whiny, head-achey colds at the same time. Cas rolls his eyes, but brings soup, because he's an awesome friend." Beta'd by Erda, even though she's busy with fic of her own and prepping for the DW fest. Thank you!

It's a Saturday afternoon in New Jersey and the Winchester brothers are miserable. To be fair, they're miserable most of the time, between the apocalypse and the variety of other shitty things with which they deal on a fairly regular basis, but this time's different. This time it comes with a sniffle.

It'd started two days ago, when Sam's hacking cough had nearly scared off a ghoul they'd been hunting for almost a week. Dean had mocked him incessantly for being such a baby, but now he has it too, and okay, it sucks. The ghoul had actually had the nerve to laugh at them for being all sniffly, and by the way, who even knew ghouls had a sense of humor? They'd won that one by killing him dead, but Dean was still pretty offended by the whole thing. Afterward, Sam had put his enormous foot down and insisted they stay put until they felt better. After a period of general snark that Dean had felt compelled to provide, he'd finally agreed, and now here they are, making pitiful noises and throwing stuff at each other from their crappy little twin hotel room beds.

"Go get ginger ale," Dean says, scrabbling around for a projectile. He's already tossed a pen cap (go get ice, my throat hurts), his shirt (go get food, this sucks) and the motel bible (only booze could possibly help this). Sam had been particularly mad about the bible, although it could have been the weight of it as much as that whole blasphemy thing, Dean isn't really sure. Sam's holding his own on the being-pissy front, though, so Dean doesn't really feel bad.

"We're going to die here," Sam says, his words coming out slurred and indistinct from where his face is pressed into his pillow. He really does look terrible, all sweaty and pale, and his cough has taken up residence deep in his chest, leading to some truly heinous sound effects.

"No we're not," Dean says with new determination. This is his brother, after all, and he can hardly let him die of the plague, no matter how pissy he is. "I know what to do."

"What?" Sam asks, sounding faintly disbelieving.

"Call my angel," Dean says, and manages a dazzling grin despite his low-grade fever.

"Yeah," Sam says, after a long, piteous cough. "Okay."

The conversation is short and to the point. "We're sick," Dean says. "Bring us things."

"I will require some time," Castiel replies.

"Hurry," Dean says, and tosses the phone back onto the bedside table. "Wish we had some cough drops," he mutters, and Sam makes a yowling noise and throws some beef jerky and a handful of m&amp;m's at him. This really seems more violent than the situation requires.

" 'S all we have," Sam says wearily, and Dean sighs and eats an m&amp;m. It doesn't feel awesome on his sore throat, which, damn. It's when you can't even enjoy candy that you realize how much things really suck.

Castiel appears a few minutes later, carrying a six pack in his usual faintly perplexed manner. It's beyond bizarre, Cas showing up with beer, and Dean wonders what would have happened if Cas had been carded. Seems like the heavenly hand of smiting probably isn't supposed to be used in order to acquire alcohol, although Dean would definitely use it for that if he had heavenly powers. That still leaves the question of why Cas has beer in the first place, though.

"What the hell?" Dean manages, before another coughing fit wracks his body. He really needs a tissue, damnit.

"I believe it's customary to bring sustenance to the ill," Castiel says. "You frequently consume alcoholic beverages, so I thought it would be appropriate."

Sam apparently can't decide whether he wants to cackle or cough, so he does both, which is a truly horrifying combination. "Look," Dean says desperately, "That's real nice, but we're dying here. We need soup, cough drops, tissues, you know, sick stuff.

Castiel just cocks his head. "I am uncertain how to acquire supplies for this sickness." He says it like it's a totally unfathomable thing, probably because for him, it is.

"Dude," Sam says, "Just go to a drug store and ask someone. It's their job to help people."

Dean nods as emphatically as he can given his state of extreme congestion. "And get soup, too. Chicken noodle."

Castiel turns back to beam at him. "I will find you this soup."

"Seriously," Sam says, after he's gone. "That's our best friend? Our lives are weird. By the way, it's not fair that he likes you better."

Dean blows his nose on the corner of his bedsheets. "I'm more awesome," he says, although it comes out sounding kind of lame, what with his stuffed up nose. Cas is actually pretty sweet, Dean thinks, although he'll never, ever tell Sammy that.

This time, Castiel comes back looking like he maybe robbed a convenience store. He has a plethora of bulky grocery bags weighing down both arms, and he's clutching more packages to his chest, boxes and covered dishes and what's maybe a teapot. It's the closest to distressed Dean thinks he's ever seen Cas, loaded down with various cold and flu remedies and about to topple over under their weight. He hastily drops everything on the kitchenette counter, brushing himself off before beginning to sort through it all.

"I brought you items," Cas says, turning around with an economy pack of tissue boxes. "Where would you like them?"

"Here," Dean croaks, "Between the beds."

Cas nods and starts dumping stuff there, making a small mountain of tissues, hand sanitizer, and throat lozenges. He places a travel container of soup on Dean's bedside table along with a handful of plastic silverware, then hands a second one off to Sam, stopping to press his palm against Dean's forehead. "You're warmer than is normal," he says, frowning.

"Yeah," Dean says, "Fever." Castiel's fingers feel smooth and cool against his head, and he considers asking him to just stay like that for a while. He doesn't say anything when Cas pulls away to fill the, yes, teapot, but he really wants to.

"Eat your soup," Castiel says over his shoulder, and Dean obeys him.

"Yes, Mom," Sam says, but he listens too. He's located the TV remote, and he flicks through a few channels until he finds an awful soap opera, the kind of thing they both always pretend to hate but secretly love. Dean remembers watching them as a kid and thinking it was real, grown-up stuff. He glances over at Sam, his hair all tangled up and his eyes half-closed, and wonders if he thought that stuff too, if he thought that was what their lives were going to turn out like. It's actually not too far off.

A few minutes later, Cas comes back over with two chipped mugs of tea. Dean's reads, "Dupont Teambuilding 1998," and is stained with a dark ring, no doubt from years of coffee. It's a surprise that the tea tastes nothing like hotel coffee, but it doesn't. It's mint, dark and rich and satisfying, and it's slightly sweetened with honey. Dean feels as though he should definitely be protesting this, but the tea is awesome, and it feels good on his throat. He decides to leave it at that.

Cas joins him on the bed, nudging him over so their legs are almost touching. He's got a washcloth in his hand, damp and folded up, and he gestures at it, waiting for Dean's okay before laying it over his eyes. Dean leans back against his pillow, strangely comforted by the cool weight on his forehead. He feels the bed dip beside him, and then there are fingertips gently brushing his hair out from under the washcloth. Dean leans back into the touch, and Castiel obliges, gently rubbing at Dean's scalp. He's going to get so much crap about this from Sam, but it feels too good to pull away, Cas gently rubbing the tension away, soothing the deep, dull ache behind his temples.

"How come I don't get head rubs?" Sam asks, "My head hurts too." Cas tenses up beside him, his fingers stilling, and Dean leans in a little closer, trying to trap him without being too painfully obvious about it. The first part works, probably not so much on the discrete part.

"Because he likes me better," Dean says smugly, and feels Cas relax against him. "Turn up the TV."

"That is seriously not fair," Sam says, but the volume does go up, and Castiel resumes rubbing Dean's head.

They stay there for an indeterminate period of time, long enough for the tv voices to change, and for Cas to refill their tea once and change the cold compress twice. Every time he gets up, Dean feels himself going tense and nervous, waiting to see if he'll come back, but Cas just tucks himself around Dean, and it even seems like he gets closer, every time he returns. Finally, Sam's breathing evens out, and by the time Dean hands his second emptied mug of tea back to Cas, Sam's snoring lightly from the other bed, his breath rattling in his chest but steady and slow.

Dean pulls off the compress, turning to look at Cas. They're very close now. Cas is curled all around him, his eyes half closed and his hand still and solid on the back of Dean's neck. Dean's pretty sure he's still feverish, but even so, he knows this should probably feel a lot weirder than it does. "Don't you have important angel shit to do?" he asks, and he's close enough to breathe in the smell of Cas, something deep and warm and not altogether human.

"Do you want me to go?" Cas murmurs. The words are a deep, low rumble, and Dean can almost feel it in his own chest.

"No," he admits. "I like this. It's helping a lot. But it would kind of suck if the world ended because I was being a baby about having a cold."

"Dean," Cas says fondly. "All these things I do, they're for you. What do they all matter if you're unhappy? Besides," he adds, looking way more mischievous than Dean thinks an angel has any right to look, "Sam has been explaining the concept of blackmail to me. I believe I am acquiring a great deal of blackmail potential by," his lips quirk in a little smile, "holding you."

"You're totally not holding me," Dean says, even though he totally is. He's completely wrapped around Dean, a hand at his neck and the other at his hip, and his legs brushing along the length of Dean's own. Yeah, this is totally embarrassing, but it's also the happiest he's felt in ages, despite the sickness.

"Well," Castiel says, "What about this?" Then he's leaning forward, closing the last bit of space between them, and his lips graze against Dean's forehead, then over his eyelids. Dean can feel Castiel's mouth against his eyelashes, a soft, ticklish sensation.

"Yeah," Dean says. "That's pretty good blackmail material. But I could use it on you, too."

Cas cocks his head in his unfairly endearing way. "Dean," he says again. Nobody's ever made his name into a caress the way Cas does. "Dean, I think everyone who's ever seen us together knows that I'm smitten with you. Even the other angels are tired of mentioning it, and they can hold onto a joke for centuries."

"I didn't know they had a sense of humor," Dean says, tipping forward and kissing Castiel slowly. Why not? He's sick, Cas can't catch it, and just the idea of Cas being smitten with him makes his stomach twist up in the best possible way.

"They do," Cas says, just a whisper against his mouth. "It's just not a good one." He's smiling warmly, a tiny, personal expression that Dean knows is just for him.

"I can deal with that," Dean says, and isn't sure which part of all of this he even means. Instead of trying to figure it out, he just kisses Castiel again. There will be plenty of time for sorting everything out when he feels better, but for now, this is more than enough.


End file.
